The Grass Is Always Greener...

"You've got a cow out by the highway," says the gentleman with a slow drawl who stopped by the house around dusk last night. 

Teacher Appreciation Collage

'Tis the season to let our teachers know how much we appreciate all that they have done for (and put up with from) our children throughout the school year.  My friend Tiffany and I got together and came up with a couple of ideas to show our teachers how special they are.

After asking the children to describe their teacher in one word, she provided me with the list of attributes and the general idea and I put together these collages, printed them on photo paper and framed them.

Miss Gunn is a Texas Longhorn fan!

This was a simple and inexpensive way to give a gift that is sentimental without being cheesy - and straight from the mouths of the students... as you can see, many of the attributes were the same, so making the second one took less time.  

Simply choose a photo and make it the backdrop or watermark in a word processing document and then begin adding text boxes and turning them different ways, changing the font and color, etc.

Have a better idea?  Let us know!  Post it on our Facebook page and we could feature your project next! 

Searching for Inspiration

In the midst of a fiction novel I have run into my first bout with writer's block. I am about three quarters of the way through and as of lately I have a hard time imagining myself being creative anywhere other than in the middle of a pasture at dusk about 4 miles north of Sharon. Growing up I was always so disappointed that my parents didn't live in town. Now, I hate that I don't live in a pasture. Literally. All I want is a small house in the middle of nowhere. I don't want to see city lights, I'm rather partial to the lights of R.C. Phillips Cattle Company whose only purpose is to light the pens of cattle whining outside their house.

Another source of inspiration I've come to love is the sale barn. My mother recently told me how strange it was that when I'm having a bad day I prefer to go to the Woodward Livestock Auction and climb to the top of the old wooden stairs to catch a single seat in the corner and watch the cattle run through the pen. I can't explain the calming effect of the noise. The hooves of the cattle on the scales, the auctioneer taking bids from ranchers up and down the rows of seats, some dressed head to toe in fancy cowboy suits, while others clearly just came in from feeding their own cattle in their overalls and trucker hats.